Simile:Simile is the simplest device of metaphorical language. It is a comparison of two concrete entities done with the help of a comparing word like ‘like’, ‘as’, ‘so’, and so on. It can be easily recognized because the comparison is explicitly made by using those comparing or linking word. The two objects or images can be easily connected in terms of meaning, as in: "O my love(r) is like a red, red rose".
However, even such a simple comparison like ‘lover’ and ‘rose’ demands more than ordinary attention and tactful interpretation, because the vehicles (like ‘rose’ here) usually carry several possible aspects of comparison. We need also to consider ‘Why "red" rose ?’ and ‘Why "red, red" ? rather than simply ‘red’? and so on. Even the selection of ‘rose’ rather than a ‘mountain’, for instance, is also significant. Thus, even a simple simile is not as simple as its looks, and it demands tact and effort. It is necessary to consider the qualities of the red, red rose ("that is newly sprung in June") like: freshness, fully blossoming, beautiful and attractive, soft, fragrant, and even its transient (short-lived) nature; we fully understand the comparison only when we interpret these and other potential qualities in terms of the qualities of a beloved: beautiful, young, tender, appealing, etc. We should interpret the complicated kind of emotional appeal and urgency aroused by a blossoming rose in terms of similar appeals that a lover also arouses.
            Another challenge with the simple looking simile is that we may not be able to decide how many qualities are to be compared, and in what sense. This demands tact, knowledge and experience. Poets also sometimes elaborate a simile by using description or other metaphors to expand the basic comparison. For example, Milton expands the comparison between Satan's followers and small flying insects, and then he elaborates it by further comparing their sound, wings, activities, abilities, etc, between them. This kind of elaboration of simile is done in epics, and so it is called ‘epic simile’. Such a device is decorative in intent.

Epic Simile: The epic simile is a figurative device first popularized by Homer in his epics. It is a comparison that may be as long as a dozen lines. An epic simile is used typically in epic poetry to intensify the heroic stature of the subject and to serve as decoration. For example, a hero may act 'like a lion'; but then this simple comparison may be developed until we read, for instance, the hero rushes to meet his enemy like a lion, a ravaging lion, whom men are resolved to kill, the whole village uniting: at first he goes on, heedless, but when some fighting man wounds him with a spear, he gathers himself open-mouthed; there is foam about his teeth, his fighting spirit groans in his heart, and with his tail he lashes his flanks on either side, then comes straight on with glaring eyes, … even so was the hero driven on by his anger and his brave spirit to confront he great-hearted enemy. Such a comparison becomes an end in itself, a striking piece of ornament and variety, and often it is unfolded in such a way that the simile differs from what it describes. No doubt, there will be no exact correspondence between the tenor (the issue) and the vehicle (the object compared with); the reader should logically interpret by understanding what features can be compared.
Edmund Spenser’s epic simile comparing two armies with the river and sea is also striking as an example. First, the poet simply compares the British army with the river and their enemies with the ocean. The river Shanon and the ocean are seen in a hand-to-hand combat with each other. Then the poet goes on to say that the ocean was threatening the river by trying to block it from its natural territory: this new idea is a political metaphor. Further elaborating the idea, the poet says that the ocean was using the water borrowed from the river and spending it against the master, the river: these metaphors are financial. After eight lines of elaborate comparison, the poet says that the river won over the tides of the ocean with doubled gain (water). Such elaborate similes add emphasis, and can direct the emotional response of the audience by presenting objects and scenes in a certain way. But they also allow the poet to include aspects of the world which otherwise could not have been got in; wild nature, peaceful agriculture, the various trades and skills.

Allegory: Allegory is a parallel story. If a single word or expression has an abstract and general meaning, it is called a symbol; but if the whole ‘story’ of a drama, story or poem has a symbolic meaning throughout, it is called an allegory. Read More...

Alliteration: Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds. The repeated consonants normally occur at the beginning of words or in stressed syllables. Read More...

Allusion: An allusion in a literary text is a reference to a personal place or event or to another literary work or passage. It does not have clear identification, that is, it does not tell directly what it stands for. Read More...

Animation: Animation is giving life to non-living objects. If a poet treats a lifeless concrete thing as having life, awareness, will-power, thought, emotion, etc, that is called animation. Read More...

Classical Poetry:The classical or neo-classical poets of the eighteenth century had had made poetry more social than personal, more intellectual than emotional and imaginative, more rule-based than spontaneous. Read More...

Elegy: The elegy was originally the form of poetry on the subject of sadness, especially ‘complaints about love’. Read More...